Now that the cast and crew is on location in and around Atlanta and filming is underway, AMC is starting to allow its producers to make their first public comments about The Walking Dead‘s upcoming fifth season.

“I think this show works best with a cycle or ramping up and ramping down,” series creator and Executive Producer Robert Kirkman told EW, “and lulling people into a sense of security and speeding things up and keeping them on guard. I will say that we definitely start this season in an up cycle, whereas last season we definitely started the season in a down cycle. So we’re certainly changing things up in that respect and we’re gonna kind of hit the ground running this season.”

He acknowledged that they’re in a unique position in terms of last season ending on a cliffhanger that will be picked up immediately in October.

“There’s been a lot more secrecy on set,” he explained. “Just because any images that get out of any kind of things that are seen do in a sense spoil that cliffhanger, so we’re trying to keep things a little more tight this time around. There’s always people crowding around where we’re filming and trying to get spy spots of what we’re doing and stuff, but for the most part we’ve been able to avoid that. This is the first time we’ve really finished a season and gone back to the same place for the next season, so that’s kind of cool.”

In an official Q&A with AMC’s “Dispatches From the Set” crew, Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd said, “The great thing is Greg Nicotero, our genius and Emmy-winning makeup effects artist, and his team at KNB EFX have something new up their sleeves every season with how they bring the walkers to life. They always manage to come up with something you’ve never seen before, and we try to surprise the cast with it also. So, they’re as surprised and shocked as the audience will be when they see the episodes.”